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Civil wrongs
(The Guardian, June 22, 2002)
America's response [to the war on terror] has triggered "one of the more dramatic constitutional crises in US history". . . . Since President George W Bush launched his "war on terror" in the wake of September 11, he and attorney-general John Ashcroft have pushed through "anti-terrorism" measures that have had constitutional and civil rights lawyers warning of an encroachment of powers akin to a police state. . . . Williams is among relatively few Americans raising their voices in alarm. She is disturbed by the apparent ease with which fundamental rights, such as habeas corpus - the right to a court hearing before prolonged detention - are being set aside in the name of an emergency that may have no end. . . . The 'war on terror' is making war not on acts of terror, but on things that terrify us." In this "war of the mind", the enemy is apt to become "anybody who makes us afraid". . . . For Williams, the supposed trade-off between freedom and security in combating the threat of terrorism is a false choice. Her point is that such profiling is not simply unfair but an ineffectual misuse of data; it delivers neither security nor justice. . . . the USA Patriot Act passed last October sets out a "breathtakingly vague and broad definition of terrorism and aiding terrorists" and sweepingly expands the government's powers to search the premises and property of even its own citizens. Williams sees it as "an unprecedented merger between the functions of intelligence agencies to foresee crimes, and law enforcement to punish crimes." She feels "advantage was taken of the times" to push through the 342-page act. "It swept into force, but it's an intricate act; it wasn't devised just in the wake of September 11. It satisfied ideological pressures from the right that in calmer times would have been resisted. As a lawyer, I'm a great admirer of the constitutional balance; both the USA Patriot Act and the executive order establishing military tribunals threaten that balance."

posted by LoZo 1:40 PM